Category Archives: horror

A dark and wickedly funny story by “the king of children’s horror” (Sunday Express)

There’s no such thing as ghosts. Everyone knows that.

Twelve-year-old Jools Bone lives in a run-down mansion, surrounded by a large collection of treasures gathered by his family of explorers and adventurers. When a TV crew arrives to film a new hands-on history series, Digging for Dead People, family friends the De Veres come to help, along with their three children, Ned, Helen and Billy.

As filming starts with the search for an ancient burial mound in the forest surrounding the Bones’ family home, the gang learn of the ancient legends surrounding the tomb of the lost prince, including tales of hauntings by the spirit of the prince himself. The children are much too rational to believe the stories: there’s no such thing as ghosts, of course. But when one particularly grim legend threatens to come true, the kids are faced with a life and death rush to prevent history repeating itself.

1. The Legend of the Lost Prince

Jools Bone came to the edge of the wood overlooking the house and saw the TV people arriving. Over the next few weeks they were going to film the search for the tomb of the lost prince, but this evening they were all getting together for a party.

It was early spring, and Jools was home for Easter. He had spent the day exploring the pine forest and the open heathland, keeping out of everyone’s way. It had been a good day, but the peanut butter sandwiches he had made himself for lunch seemed a long time ago now.

He watched the people arriving. The Bone House was Jools’s family home. All this land surrounding it was Bone land. These people were taking over his territory and he didn’t like it at all.

But there would be party food in the house…

“There will be all kinds of people,” his mother had told him that morning. “There’ll be … oh, I don’t know … that girl from Eastenders and I think there’s a newsreader coming. And there’ll be Fanny Albright, of course.”

Celebrities he’d barely heard of didn’t hold much interest for Jools, but the party food was calling louder and louder to his grumbling belly.

He watched more headlights coming up the long, straight drive. He’d never seen so many expensive cars.

Jools stepped out from the edge of the wood.

This was his house, and so it was his party, and his party food. He would go down and have something to eat, but he wasn’t going to be at all impressed.

~

Jools pushed at the front door and went inside.

After the woods everything suddenly seemed bright and loud.

People stood in small groups around the big entrance hall. The wide double doors through to the dining hall were open, and Jools could see more people through there.

The front door swung open again behind him and two people swept through. The man wore a black dinner jacket and the woman wore a long, sparkling evening dress.

Jools turned away from them.

Then he looked back.

That man … Surely he was Darren Beasley? He had spent two years in the Arsenal reserve team before joining Norwich City. Darren Beasley!

And the woman with him. She was a singer. The podgy one in Nite Gurlz who couldn’t mime. Or dance. Or, for that matter, sing.

They came up and stopped by Jools. He knew his mouth was hanging open. In fact it was so wide open his jaw must be resting somewhere in the middle of his rib-cage by now.

The woman – the one who had problems with tight clothes and who couldn’t sing or mime or dance – smiled at him. She took her wispy jacket off and dropped it in Jools’s arm. “There’s a dear,” she said.

Darren Beasley did likewise, except he said nothing and his coat was thicker and leatherier and not at all wispy. Then the two turned away and headed on into the house.

He closed his mouth and remembered that he wasn’t going to be at all impressed. He turned and dropped the coats on a wooden chair.

He remembered that he was hungry, too, and so he followed Dazzer and wotsit from Nite Gurlz through into the dining hall.

All around him, people were kissing the air by each other’s cheeks and exclaiming loudly as if they hadn’t seen each other for a century or two. Jools was sure he recognised most of the people here. There was a weather man from breakfast TV, and someone who used to host a gardening programme. Even the people he didn’t recognise acted as if everyone should know who they were.

He spotted a plate stacked high with tiny triangular sandwiches and took seven. From a bowl he scooped a handful of nuts which he tipped into a pocket, and then he took some more sandwiches.

He saw his mother with her hair done up like a pineapple, laughing with a famous-looking man in a bad wig.

With them were two people Jools vaguely recognised from old family photographs.

The woman wore jeans and a Simpsons tee-shirt. The man wore cords and a badly-fitting tweed jacket. And muddy wellington boots. She had neat short hair. He had straggly grey hair and a big shaggy beard that was probably full of wildlife.

These were the De Veres, Jools remembered. Mack and Jenny De Vere had been at Cambridge with Jools’s mother Judith and his father, the late Sir Christopher Bone. Like his father, they were archaeologists, which explained their appearance.

Jools looked around and realised that there were other earth-grubbers here, too. This entire gathering was an odd mixture of shiny media types in designer outfits and without a hair out of place, and … well … the archaeologists.

Jools liked the archaeologists most of all. They knew what it was like to be out there in the real world. They knew how people lived, and how people had lived long before. They were real people with mud under their finger nails, and usually smeared over their faces and through their hair, too.

Jools tried to puzzle out how to eat his sandwiches when they were stacked up high in both hands. He could find somewhere to put them down. Or he could just try to tease the top sandwich from the stack with his teeth and his tongue and … slight misjudgement there … his nose.

He didn’t know what was in the sandwich, but getting the filling up his nose certainly made his eyes water. He rubbed his nose on his shoulder, dropping three of the sandwiches as he did so.

He backed away into a corner of the room where a girl of about his age and an older boy stood guarding a plate of flaky pastry things.

“Darlings,” called the woman again, and Jools remembered that this was Fanny Albright. Fanny had first come to public attention as the posh one voted out of the Big Brother house. She had lasted about half of the series before viewers had had enough of her. Since then she had appeared on a variety of TV shows, some of which had even lasted into a second series.

Her new programme, Digging for Dead People, was a big break for her. Prime time TV on one of the main channels with Fanny as the host.

“Darlings,” Fanny bellowed again, as if she was struggling to remember all the other words she wanted to say.

Jools stretched, and saw the top of Fanny Albright’s head through the crowd. It didn’t help that she was so short. It was always hard to stamp your authority on an audience when you were looking up their nostrils.

Suddenly, she loomed over everyone. Someone had found her a chair to stand on.

“Darlings,” she said again. Jools wondered if that might be all she would ever say.

“Thank you so much for coming to this darling little party,” said Fanny, suddenly remembering some of the other words that made up the English language. “And thank you so much to darling Judith Bone–”

That’s my mum, that is, thought Jools.

“–for hosting this party in her darling little country home.”

Jools looked around. There weren’t many “darling little country homes” with a dining hall that could comfortably hold a hundred guests, and with so many spare floors and wings that most of the place was locked up and covered in dustsheets.

“And thank you so much to the heroes on my production team – you know who you are – for this party marks the start of work on a series that will mark a revolution in the history of factual television. My new prime time series, Digging for Dead People, will do for the dusty old world of archaeology what nobody has done before!”

“I can hardly wait,” muttered the girl guarding the flaky pastry.

Jools braved another sandwich, careful this time not to get the filling up his nose.

When he looked up, Fanny Albright was holding what looked like a vase in the air over her head, as if she had just single-handedly won the FA Cup.

It wasn’t just any old vase, Jools saw.

It was an earthenware pot, reddish brown with a thick lip. You could see the lines around it where it had been built up from rings of river clay and then smoothed over. The top was sealed with a clay plug.

This was ancient – Neolithic, Jools thought. Probably Bronze Age.

It looked very much like one that Jools had seen in his father’s collection upstairs.

It would be priceless. Not that you would ever think of such a thing in terms of how much it was worth. It could never be replaced, that was for sure.

And Fanny Albright was waving it around as if she’d just snatched it off a stall at a jumble sale.

“Meet the Lost Prince,” she said, shaking the pot for emphasis. “Here we have the star of the first programme in my new prime time TV series, Digging for Dead People . Here: in this jug. The Lost Prince’s ashes.”

“It’s not a jug. It’s a funerary urn,” mumbled the girl with the flaky pastries.

Jools couldn’t help but agree with her. She may be hogging the pastries to herself, but she certainly seemed to know her Neolithic earthenware.

“According to local legend,” Fanny Albright went on, “somewhere nearby, deep in the darkest deep gloomy bits of the forest, there lies the tomb of the lost prince. The prince himself lived thousands of years ago, and even though he was only a boy he led his tribe to victory in a great battle while his father lay on his sickbed.

“The battle was won, the tribe was saved, but tragically the prince lost his life to the disease his father was recovering from. He was buried a hero and given a tomb fit for the king that he never became. Somewhere…”

Fanny clutched the pot one-handed and used her free hand to wave out, beyond the walls of the Bone House to the forest.

“Somewhere out there…”

The gathering had fallen silent as Fanny told this tale.

Jools knew the story, of course. His father had told him of the legend often enough.

“Darlings, the first programme in my new prime time show, Digging for Dead People, will tell the story of the lost prince. We’ll be filming here in the forest as my team of valiant researchers seek out the prince’s tomb. We aim to uncover it for only the second time since the prince himself was buried.”

A man somewhere near Fanny cleared his throat. “Ms Albright?”

She smiled at him.

“You just said this would be the second time the tomb had been opened?”

She nodded. “Several hundred years ago,” she said, “when the Vikings were doing all those things the Vikings did. You know. Well, anyway… All that time ago, a group of Vikings found the tomb and dug their way in. Probably hoping for gold and jewels and all that.”

“What did they find?”

“There may have been treasure. We don’t know for sure. But what they did find was the cremated remains of the brave prince – his ashes.”

As she said this, Fanny Albright raised the earthenware pot above her head again. “This pot,” she said, “has belonged to the Bone family for generations.”

That would explain why it looked so much like the one Jools had seen in his father’s collection, then.

“It is the pot stolen from the tomb of the lost prince,” said Fanny Albright. “It is…” She paused, and looked around the crowd. She waited.

This was clearly meant to be a dramatic pause. You know the kind. But Fanny left it too long. Long enough for people to start looking at each other, shuffling from foot to foot and wondering if she had actually finished what she was saying. Or had, perhaps, forgotten what she was saying.

Finally, she continued: “It is the pot that contains the ashes of the lost prince himself!”

She leaned forward, with the pot held high.

Which wasn’t her smartest move, considering the fact that she was standing on a chair. A rather wobbly chair, at that.

As Jools watched, he saw her expression change from one of fierce intensity to … eyes widening, mouth opening … surprise, panic.

As she tipped forward, the chair’s wooden legs made a loud groaning sound on the dining hall’s stone floor.

She gasped.

She cried out.

She threw her hands in the air and spread her arms to catch herself on the people right in front of her.

The earthenware pot!

Jools tore his eyes from the falling TV personality and saw the pot flying high across the room. It was a big thing, about the size of Jools’s head.

Which was a good comparison, because it was flying directly towards Jools’s head.

Fast.

Somehow, he managed to duck, drop the remaining sandwiches, and raise his hands at the same time. A great weight suddenly struck his palms.

He looked up. The pot was there, in his hands.

“Nice catch,” said the girl with the flaky pastries. “Shame about the jumper, though.”

“Jason Erik Lundberg’s third collection, Strange Mammals, gathers 25 short stories in which literary naturalism gives way to the surreal, the absurd and the magical… Lundberg has the enviable talent of achieving emotionally resonant effects within just a few pages.” Guardian

A bit steep? Well both are bargains compared to a first edition of Flesh and Blood, which is listed at $211.38.

I’m sure it’s some kind of scam and that these aren’t really viable prices for first edition Nicks, but Hell, it makes the new editions seem like real bargains, with paperbacks of four Nick Gifford novels at $12.99 and ebook editions a mere $3.99 each. Probably best to snap them up quickly before collectors drive the prices up!

Just out from infinity plus:

Nocturnes and other Nocturnes by Claude Lalumière (“Claude Lalumière’s extravagant imagination is matched by only two other qualities: his compassion for his characters, and his sparkling facility with language” Paul Di Filippo), plus new editions of Stephen Palmer’s first three novels (“Palmer is a find” Time Out) and an omnibus edition of Keith Brooke’s Expatria series (“This is a marvellous book that, despite the sequel … is a complete novel in itself. Treat yourself: buy both, and read them over and over.” Nexus). And in early 2014: the extraordinary Hairy London by Stephen Palmer, plus more from our best-selling author, Eric Brown.

Nocturnes and other Nocturnes by Claude Lalumière

Twenty-five dark stories that span a daring breadth of genres. In these noir tales that unfold at the edge of realism, mythic nocturnes from impossible pasts, and disquietingly intimate stories of speculative fiction, Claude Lalumière explores our collective and intertwined obsessions with sex and death.

“In Nocturnes and Other Nocturnes Claude Lalumière plumbs the deep trenches of yearning, fear and the agonies of unfulfilled needs.” – from the introduction by Garry Kilworth

Memory Seed, Glass and Flowercrash by Stephen Palmer

There is one city left, and soon that will be gone, for the streets of Kray are crumbling beneath a wave of exotic and lethal vegetation threatening to wipe out the last traces of humanity. In the desperate struggle for survival most Krayans live from day to day, awaiting salvation from their goddesses or the government. A compelling first novel set on a world both deadly and fascinating.

“Palmer’s imagination is fecund, and his city, inhabited by clashing tribes of women (men are confined to breeding houses), with exotic biotechnologies which enable computers and other machines to be grown from genetically engineered seeds, is vividly drawn… a hectic but ultimately convincing debut.” Interzone

A plague is spreading through the city of Cray. Nobody knows its origin and nobody has discovered a cure. Cray is dying. Of glass. As the city’s ruling council resorts to increasingly desperate measures to maintain order, two people’s lives are about to change…

“This is a brilliant second novel and makes, like its predecessor, a welcome change in a genre clogged with tat.” SFX, Guy Haley’s choice as Best Original SF novel of the year

Flowercrash

http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/book.php?book=spflwr
Zaïdmouth’s five communities are intertwined by artificial flower networks so complex they combine to create the virtual realities through which Zaïdmouth is run. Yet into this vivid world a bad seed is about to be sewn.

“I would urge science fiction fans to read the novel… It’s an exciting and thought provoking story that is well worth seeking out.” Aural Innovations

Expatria: the boxed set by Keith Brooke

A lost colony, rediscovered by descendants of its original investors… When the expedition from the Holy Corporation of GenGen arrives on Expatria, for some it looks like salvation from a backward-looking, superstition-ridden society, but for others, it looks suspiciously like an invasion.

“In the recognized front ranks of SF writers.” Locus

Coming in early 2014

Hairy London by Stephen Palmer

Available in paperback and ebook formats in early 2014

What is love?

One evening at the Suicide Club three gentlemen discuss this age old problem – and thus a wager is made. Dissolute fop Sheremy Pantomile, veteran philosopher Kornukope Wetherbee and down-on-his-luck Velvene Orchardtide all bet their fortunes on finding the answer amidst the dark alleys of a phantasmagorical Edwardian London.

But then, overnight, London Town is covered in hair. How the trio of adventurers cope with this unusual plague, and what conclusions they come to regarding love is the subject of this surreal, surprising and fast-paced novel.

And the East End threatens revolution…

Also coming in early 2014, books by Eric Brown, Jack Deighton and more.

Also of note

Published in December 2013:

Piggies, Flesh and Blood, Like Father and Erased by Nick Gifford

Gifford’s first four young adult novels are now available in paperback and ebook formats from our infinite press imprint.

Transported to a world inhabited by vampires, Ben befriends a girl called Rachel. She takes him to her farm to prove she’s not like the other vampires, but that’s when he discovers a terrible secret. And why is the book called Piggies? That’s the worst horror of all. Optioned for film by Andy Serkis.

“Ingenious… this chilling story reads with all the power and demented logic of a thoroughly bad dream.” The Independent

Matt’s home life is falling to pieces as his mother seeks refuge from divorce by returning to the seaside town where she grew up. Separated from his friends, bored and discontented, Matt gradually becomes aware that his mother’s family are the keepers of a terrifying secret.

Danny is terrified of being like his father, who ended up in prison after a night of savage violence. But then he finds his father’s diary and uncovers his dark thoughts – and even darker secrets. Who was whispering to his father, goading him, leading him on? And what if they are coming back for Danny?

You’re not paranoid if they really are after you. Someone is messing with Liam’s world. All the rules have changed and his life has unravelled completely. What he does know is that someone is watching him. There are no bystanders in this terrifying game.

“An exciting, fast paced book that will have you on the edge of your seat until the last page.” Word Up

And due in early 2014, Gifford’s new YA thriller, Tomorrow:

When fifteen-year-old Luke’s father dies, his eccentric family threatens to descend into chaos. Luke distracts himself by helping to sort through his father’s belongings, a painful process which takes on an entirely new dimension when he discovers that his father had somehow had knowledge of events in his own future. This prescience is connected in some way to a recent spate of terrorist attacks, which would explain why security forces – and others – start to take an interest in Luke’s discovery. Just what had his father known, and why are Luke and his friends suddenly at the centre of it all?

Tomorrow: an emotion- and time-tangled thriller set in the War Against Chronological Terror.

Tomorrow: when three teenagers may have the power to save or destroy a world that is yet to be.

infinity plus in print

An increasing number of our titles are also published in paperback and all of these are available to booksellers. If you’re a bookseller and would like to stock any of our books, have a look at our titles in print for details. All print titles are available via Ingrams, but if you’d prefer to deal directly with us just get in touch and we’ll work it out.

A set of handsome new paperbacks, plus the first ever ebook editions of Nick Gifford’s first four novels: young adult fiction with a dark, paranoid edge, first published in the UK by Penguin.

Piggies
Transported to a world inhabited by vampires, Ben befriends a girl called Rachel. She takes him to her farm to prove she’s not like the other vampires, but that’s when he discovers a terrible secret. And why is the book called Piggies? That’s the worst horror of all. Optioned for film by Jonathan Cavendish and Andy Serkis.

“Ingenious… this chilling story reads with all the power and demented logic of a thoroughly bad dream.” The Independent

Flesh and Blood
Matt’s home life is falling to pieces as his mother seeks refuge from divorce by returning to the seaside town where she grew up. Separated from his friends, bored and discontented, Matt gradually becomes aware that his mother’s family are the keepers of a terrifying secret.

Like Father
Danny is terrified of being like his father, who ended up in prison after a night of savage violence. But then he finds his father’s diary and uncovers his dark thoughts – and even darker secrets. Who was whispering to his father, goading him, leading him on? And what if they are coming back for Danny?
*Originally published by Penguin as Incubus, this edition reverts to the author’s preferred title.

“Incubus is a chilling psychological drama, a supernatural horror story and, somewhere on the edge, is a political thriller: the episodes in East Germany are as tense and unusual as the rest … a dark story that will chill the reader … Teenage readers should find this gripping: a cut above the usual horror tale.”School Librarian

Erased
You’re not paranoid if they really are after you. Someone is messing with Liam’s world. All the rules have changed and his life has unravelled completely. What he does know is that someone is watching him. There are no bystanders in this terrifying game.

“An exciting, fast paced book that will have you on the edge of your seat until the last page.” Word Up

A set of beautifully crafted tales of the imagination by a writer who was smitten by the magic of the speculative short story at the age of twelve and has remained under its spell ever since.

These few stories cover three closely related sub-genres: science fiction, fantasy and horror. In the White Garden murders are taking place nightly, but who is leaving the deep foot-prints in the flower beds? Twelve men are locked in the jury room, but thirteen emerge after their deliberations are over. In a call centre serving several worlds, the staff are less than helpful when things go wrong with a body-change holiday.

Three of the stories form a set piece under the sub-sub-genre title of ‘Anglo-Saxon Tales’. This trilogy takes the reader back to a time when strange gods ruled the lives of men and elves were invisible creatures who caused mayhem among mortals.

Garry Kilworth has created a set of stories that lift readers out of their ordinary lives and place them in situations of nightmare and wonder, or out among far distant suns. Come inside and meet vampires, dragons, ghosts, aliens, weremen, people who walk on water, clones, ghouls and marvellous wolves with the secret of life written beneath their eyelids.

The first copies of the print editions of three new infinity plus titles:

Salvage by Eric Brown

When Salvageman Ed saves Ella Rodriguez from spider-drones on the pleasure planet of Sinclair’s Landfall, he has no idea what he’s letting himself in for. Ella is not at all what she seems, as he’s soon about to find out.

What follows, as the spider-drones and the Hayakawa Organisation chase Ed, Ella and engineer Karrie light-years across space, is a fast-paced adventure with Ed learning more about Ella – and about himself – than he ever expected.

The Salvageman Ed series of linked stories – four of which appear here for the first time – combine action, humour and pathos, from the master of character-based adventure science fiction.

A set of beautifully crafted tales of the imagination by a writer who was smitten by the magic of the speculative short story at the age of twelve and has remained under its spell ever since.

These few stories cover three closely related sub-genres: science fiction, fantasy and horror. In the White Garden murders are taking place nightly, but who is leaving the deep foot-prints in the flower beds? Twelve men are locked in the jury room, but thirteen emerge after their deliberations are over. In a call centre serving several worlds, the staff are less than helpful when things go wrong with a body-change holiday.

Three of the stories form a set piece under the sub-sub-genre title of ‘Anglo-Saxon Tales’. This trilogy takes the reader back to a time when strange gods ruled the lives of men and elves were invisible creatures who caused mayhem among mortals.

Garry Kilworth has created a set of stories that lift readers out of their ordinary lives and place them in situations of nightmare and wonder, or out among far distant suns. Come inside and meet vampires, dragons, ghosts, aliens, weremen, people who walk on water, clones, ghouls and marvellous wolves with the secret of life written beneath their eyelids.

Sometimes when you fall over you don’t get up again. And sometimes, you get up to find everything has changed:

An ordinary man who sees his face in a tabloid newspaper. A soldier haunted by the images of those he has killed from afar. Two petty criminals on the run from a punishment more implacable than either of them can imagine. Doppelgängers both real and imaginary. A tranquil English village where those who don’t fit in really aren’t welcome, and a strange hotel where second chances are allowed… at a price.

Ten stories of unease, fear and the weird from James Everington.

“Good writing gives off fumes, the sort that induce dark visions, and Everington’s elegant, sophisticated prose is a potent brew. Imbibe at your own risk.” – Robert Dunbar, author of The Pines and Martyrs & Monsters.